REAGAN PICKED UP THE endorsement of an old liberal antagonist from California, Republican congressman Pete McCloskey. He'd been a burr under Reagan's saddle for years, having opposed every campaign of the Gipper's. Reagan once jokingly said that McCloskey's district ought to be moved to the San Andreas Fault.91 In one of the weirder media events of the campaign, aides pushed McCloskey's ancient Volkswagen Bug onto the tarmac where Reagan's plane awaited. In front of the Gipper, McCloskey put a Reagan bumper sticker on his jalopy and then saluted the sticker, Marine-style.92
Another old rival, Jerry Ford, was campaigning aggressively for Reagan—though some Reagan aides thought it more than coincidence that the former president seemed to stump near every championship golf course in America. Ford zapped Carter over the “misery index.” Carter had employed the cockamamie phrase in 1976 to refer to the combination of unemployment and inflation. Back then the index had stood at around 15 percent. Unfortunately for Carter and even more so for the average American, by 1980 it had rocketed up to over 21 percent.93
The Carter team had taken a calculated risk in making the warmonger charge against Reagan, and the president had endured his share of criticism for making the allegation. Still, Carter's campaign remained convinced that Reagan was vulnerable on issues of war and peace. Confirming their strategy, a new poll by NBC News and the Associated Press showed that 41 percent of Americans thought Carter would do the best job at keeping the country out of war; only 16 percent said Reagan. The same poll revealed that voters believed Reagan would do a better job on the economy.94 Carter's men needed to keep attention on the issues which benefited them, and Team Reagan likewise.
Unfortunately for the Reagan campaign, the media were still picking up on the divisions between the Ford/Bush insiders and Reagan's Californian outsiders. Stories in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times quoted campaign officials citing chapter and verse against the conservatives while making the former Ford and Bush operatives look smooth and debonair. The biggest target was Lyn Nofziger, who was taken to task for his demeanor, his rumpled clothing, and his inability to kiss the media's asses. Nofziger, as always, had the last word, even in the story: “I see certain people here who were for Ford, certain who were for George Bush and other people I don't like. This is the way I feel: I'll love you until November 4, and then, I'll be out to get you.”95 Not for a moment did anyone doubt Nofziger, who had been a contributor to Richard Nixon's notorious “Enemies List.” It was for this and a million other reasons that Nofziger was simultaneously beloved and feared.
Fortunately for the candidate, such distractions were more than offset by his strong performance in Baltimore and his recent successful stumping. Polls showed that Reagan's fortunes had rebounded somewhat. The New York Times, which before the debate had had him down to Carter, 40–36, now had him up, 40–35, and a new NBC–Associated Press poll showed that he had regained the lead over Carter by a wider margin, 42–33.96
Still, Reagan's team felt the need to step things up. Specifically, longtime Reagan aides such as Jeff Bell worried that the campaign needed to do more than simply convince Americans that Carter needed to get kicked out of office. If Reagan won, he would need a mandate to do things. Gauzy, nonspecific ads were finally scrapped near the end of September in favor of more issue-oriented messages offering bold solutions to the ailments of America.
Conservatives did not want another empty win, as in 1972. They wanted this election to stand for something.
32
MISSION FROM GOD
“Americans might be separated, black from white, Jew from Christian, North from South, rural from urban.”
Although Ronald Reagan had moved slightly ahead of Jimmy Carter in the national polls in late September, his lead was within the margin of error. And while a new Associated Press survey showed Reagan ahead in states with 236 electoral votes, 34 short of the 270 needed, his campaign described his lead in many of these states as “shaky.”1 Gerald Ford, the Reaganites reminded themselves, had topped out at 240 electoral votes four years earlier. More telling was the Washington Post's in-depth polling in seven battleground states, which showed Carter ahead in New York, Reagan ahead in California, and the race dead even in the other five states, including Texas, Michigan, and New Jersey.2
Some voters were slowly migrating away from either John Anderson or Carter, because they were coming to believe that one was unelectable and the other was unacceptable. But just as Jeff Bell and other conservatives feared, these voters weren't embracing Reagan because of his ideas, at least not yet; they were simply dubious about the other two candidates and were now in the undecided column.3
Even Reagan's alma mater, Eureka College in downstate Illinois, seemed ambivalent about him. Reagan was clearly Eureka's most famous alumnus, and if he became president it would rain attention and much-needed endowments onto the sleepy, perpetually cash-strapped school. Still, there were no outward signs of support for Reagan at Eureka. The tiny school did not even bother to display the rare items and documents he had donated over the years. The material instead was stored in the basement of one of the institution's six red brick buildings.
In the 1940s Reagan and his then-wife, Jane Wyman, had approached the school about funding a performing arts center named after the two of them. The school excitedly said yes and Reagan wrote out a sizable check. But in the intervening time, Reagan and Wyman entered into divorce proceedings (at her insistence) and thus Wyman's check never arrived at the school. The plans for the center were quietly shelved by the school's administration.4
Reagan's hometown was less circumspect than his alma mater. Dixon's city fathers, having bought the old Reagan homestead, took out ads in the New York Times and other major newspapers touting their new book, Reagan's Dixon. “Before you vote,” the ad urged, “this should be must reading for you.”5
There was little more than a month to go before Election Day, and voters were still trying to figure out who Ronald Reagan was.
Reporters would have liked to supply their own answers, but the Reagan campaign continued to curtail media access to the candidate. Many of the hard and often boiled gentlemen of the press sat at the back of the plane, sucking on adult beverages and cigarettes, with little to do except sulk and complain to each other and the staff.
Carter's campaign remained intent on defining Reagan for voters. Not only was the president going hard after the Republican in speeches, but the campaign had also rolled out attack ads “designed to stir questions about Ronald Reagan's ability, at the age of 69, to handle the job,” as the New York Times reported.6 One “man on the street” ad featured an American saying, “Reagan scares me,” and another commercial pointed out that while governor, Reagan acted as if California had its own foreign policy.7
Pat Caddell, the president's pollster, saw nothing to dissuade Carter from savaging Reagan. Citing polls showing that Anderson was falling, Caddell believed that the independent would soon be below 10 percent and that Anderson's wandering sheep would eventually rejoin Carter's flock.8
But Caddell's Republican counterpart, Dick Wirthlin, had detected signs in his surveys that Carter's harsh attacks were no longer working. The president, he believed, was playing with fire by continuing to go after Reagan so viciously. Even some White House aides leaked to the press their concerns that the president had “gone overboard” and had “overstated” his arguments against the GOP nominee.9
In a column on Carter's attack apparatus, Tom Wicker of the New York Times concluded: “He may win re-election by exaggerations, distortions and innuendo designed to ‘reinforce’ public fear of Mr. Reagan, as well as by clever exploitation of a short public memory for his own promises and pretensions. But next year, when the bands have been stilled and the lights dimmed, what Adlai Stevenson called ‘the stark problem of governing’ will remain. And Jimmy Carter, in a second term so won, may find himself less admired, less trusted, therefore even less able to lead and achieve than he was in his first. Think of that.”1
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Carter was not thinking about the long-term implications of this election. In a confidential memo written months earlier, one of his campaign aides, Karl Struble, had bluntly assessed the situation. “The electorate is more volatile and less committed to a presidential candidate … since World War II,” Struble incisively wrote. “Every 30–40 years, the United States has experienced a realigning election (1828, 1860, 1896, 1932).… The last realigning election occurred in 1932. Similar unstable economic conditions and the inability of the dominant party to cast off obsolete ideology, made the ‘New Deal Coalition’ possible. Historically, we are overdue for another realigning election.”
Struble continued: “There is mounting evidence that blue collar workers, urban white ethnics and Southern Democrats are slowly disintegrating as cornerstones of a Democratic majority.… Reagan … could become the lightning rod which realigns our political parties.”11
THE REAGAN CAMPAIGN'S PUBLIC position at this point was that there would be no new debates. Jody Powell accused Reagan of “duplicity” for refusing to debate without Anderson.12 In truth, there was no clear consensus inside Reagan Central on whether the Gipper should debate again. Indeed, a dispute had broken out among Reagan's inner circle on the subject.
On one side of the divide were the pro-debate “hawks,” including Ed Meese and Bill Casey, who argued for a one-on-one debate with Carter and abandoning the campaign's position that Anderson needed to be included. On the other side were the anti-debate “doves,” such as Bill Timmons, Lyn Nofziger, and Dick Wirthlin, who felt that a debate gaffe would halt the momentum Reagan had recently been building. One dove anonymously told the New York Times, “Debates are tough. You're rolling the dice every time you go out.”13
Before the internal debate over debates was over, individuals would shift sides more than once. Three people had yet to really be heard from: Nancy Reagan, Jim Baker, and the Gipper himself.
Another debate was playing out on Capitol Hill. Republican senators wanted to get the first installment of the Reagan tax cut up for a vote, to show voters that Carter and the Democrats were on the wrong side of the issue. Senator Bob Dole was Reagan's chief spear-carrier, and if anyone knew how to take a minority of recalcitrant GOP senators and beat the Democrats, or at least put them on the defensive, it was Dole, the legislative magician. Dole could not muster enough support and the measure failed, along party lines, 54–38, but the Republicans had made their point: the GOP was foursquare for personal income tax cuts and the Democrats were on record opposing them.14
CARTER HAD NOT BACKED off on his attacks, and now even John Anderson criticized the president for the warmonger swipes at Reagan. Carter, Anderson said, had made “an unfair, highly political, and undocumented charge” against Reagan and was using “scare tactics” to suggest “that the election in November is a choice between peace and war.”15 The president was being “demagogic,” according to Anderson.16
The Reagan campaign believed, before most of the president's team did, that Carter's harsh rhetoric was beginning to backfire, that voters wanted something more uplifting, more inspiring, than two men slugging it out in the gutter. Nofziger, always with his finger on the pulse of the people, said, “Clearly there is no great demand for this kind of campaign anymore.”17 With that, the Reagan-Bush campaign made a critically important strategic decision: it resolved to take the high road.
Reagan's message changed dramatically on the road. In Florida he spotted a sign that read “Blacks for Reagan.” Smiling broadly, Reagan departed from his speech and said, “God bless you, and God bless those who brought that sign and, by golly, it shows that you can't fool all of the people all of the time.”18
This change in sentiment eventually infused the entire campaign. Whereas Carter had continually attacked Reagan the man, Reagan's campaign would mostly stick to questioning Carter's record as president. In a major address to the World Affairs Council, George Bush characterized Carter's foreign policy as one of “bluff, bluster and backdown” and accused the president of weakening American influence. Bush reminded his audience of Carter's surprise a year earlier when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. “Ronald Reagan would take office next January with a full understanding of the expansionist nature and geopolitical intentions of the leaders of the Soviet Union.”19 Loosely translated, this meant that if elected, Reagan was going to ride roughshod over the Russians.
REAGAN WAS STILL WELL behind in North Carolina and several other southern states, and Carter was fighting hard to hold on to what had been his. But it now looked as if the walls of Carter's once “Solid South” might tumble down. New polls showed Reagan creeping into small leads in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. He was also leading in Virginia.20
The votes in the South, according to political observer Michael Barone, broke down into three categories: blacks, “country club whites,” and the swing vote of culturally conservative, rural, blue-collar Democrats. Grit by grit, a slow, trickling stream of southern Democrats was moving toward Reagan or undecided, dismayed with their cultural brother, Carter. Jimmy Buffett was surprised to hear boos from a young crowd in Georgia when Carter's name was mentioned at a fundraising concert for the incumbent.21
A new category had also emerged in the South beginning in 1976: that of the politically active Evangelical church. Reagan continued to court this fast-growing constituency. He journeyed to Lynchburg, Virginia, to address thousands of supportive evangelicals at the National Religious Broadcasters Association Convention, telling them that if elected, he would push for voluntary prayers in public schools. Reagan sidestepped a controversy when asked whether he agreed with a recent statement by the Reverend Jerry Falwell that God heard the prayers only of Christians. “No,” he replied. “Since both the Christian and Judaic religions are based on the same God, the God of Moses, I'm quite sure those prayers are heard.”22
Reagan was also making some inroads up north. Nancy Reagan, on a rare solo mission, held a high-profile event in New Jersey with a number of current and former Democratic officeholders, including sheriffs, town mayors, and ward leaders, who endorsed her husband.23 When Reagan arrived for his own tour in New Jersey, he reminded the heavily Catholic state of his support for tax credits for parochial schools. A heckler yelled out that it was not constitutional and Reagan, not missing a beat, fired back, “Yes it is! Separation of church and state does not mean we have to separate ourselves from our religion.” A few other hecklers joined in and Reagan joshed to the overwhelmingly supportive crowd, “I wish they'd shut up!”24
When Ray Donovan, the developer who was the head of the Reagan campaign in New Jersey, and Roger Stone, the campaign's regional political director, were not butting heads, they were organizing a very effective operation in the state.
In New York City, of all places, Reagan inveighed against government. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Carter had halted the construction of the badly needed replacement for the West Side Highway; the crowd of hardhats and unionists, who supported the $1 billion project, loudly cheered Reagan. Lou Cannon noted that Reagan was striking a New Deal theme when he told the workers, “I happen to think that the best social program is a job.”25 The union workers gave Reagan a hardhat, an item that would come in handy given all that Carter was throwing at him.
The Republican candidate moved on to Pennsylvania and discovered to his delight that he'd moved ahead of Carter there, 40–33 percent, according to a Gallup poll. Reagan told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre, “Mr. Carter does not represent the same values as such great Democrats as John F. Kennedy or Harry Truman.”26
As certain pockets in the East were moving toward Reagan, the western states were beginning to fall in line behind the Gipper, with only Hawaii looking dubious. The West, from the election of Dwight Eisenhower up to 1976—excepting LBJ's landslide in 1964—had been reliably Republican in presidential elections. And of course, the West was Reagan Country. Carter's forays into this region were not bearing fruit.
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nbsp; By early October, Carter was stymied. His recovery in the polls had stalled after the Reagan-Anderson debate, and now reporters were beginning to ask him about the “meanness” issue. When Reagan criticized the SALT II treaty with the Soviets, saying that “the one card that's been missing in the negotiations has been the possibility of an arms race,” Carter surprisingly did not respond. While the president's advisers may have finally been considering a new approach, they still had Walter Mondale to go on the attack. “This underscores what I think is a reckless, irresponsible and dangerous attitude by the Republican nominee,” the vice president said of Reagan's comments.27
Carter didn't hold his tongue long, however. Speaking at a black-tie Democratic Party fundraiser, he threw a below-the-beltway punch, stating that if Reagan was elected, he would bring about “the alienation of black from white, Christian from Jew, rich from poor, and North from South.”28 The Washington Post had become so inured to Deacon Carter's “mission from God” inflammatory rhetoric that the story ran on page two and the appalling language was buried at the end of the article.
Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America Page 69